


fallen photograph

by prsseux



Category: The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, basically magnus and alec talking about maryse, but she's the centre because well ;/ i love her, so is maryse by the way, valentine and robert are only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prsseux/pseuds/prsseux
Summary: Perhaps it was the memory he had of the girl on the photo that compelled him to keep it.
Relationships: Alec Lightwood & Maryse Lightwood, Jocelyn Fairchild & Maryse Lightwood, Magnus Bane & Alec Lightwood, Magnus Bane & Maryse Lightwood, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	fallen photograph

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago, and decided to post it now for some reason. I like the idea of Magnus and Alec talking about Maryse, specially of Magnus providing more details that Alec might not remember/not know about his mom uwu. I hope you guys like whatever this is.
> 
> \- Lua

“Who’s that?” He asked softly, long finger pointing at the picture that fell from the book Magnus held. The warlock had been telling him stories about his past, pulling up letters and pictures and souvenirs — sharing with Alec his past, hoping to be able to share with him the future as well. In the picture stood a young girl, her shoulders squared and runes exposed through the cutouts of her dress. She looked beautiful, ethereal in a way Alec could only imagine angels to be.

“Look closely, take a guess.” Magnus purred, wrapping his arms around Alec from behind, resting his chin on his lover’s shoulder. Jocelyn had left that picture behind after one appointment; she had been desperate to know about her friend, desperate to know if the younger woman was safe after the disaster at the accords. Magnus had not managed to track her from the photo on its own, but he had kept it for some reason. Perhaps it was the memory he had of the girl in the photo that compelled him to keep it.

Alec decided to follow Magnus advice, sapphire blue eyes staring at the image, taking in those features until that small face wasn’t so unfamiliar, until those eyes began to resemble the same ones he stared at every morning as he faced the mirror. The heart-shaped lips, button nose and perfect posture. He knew that girl, better than anyone else. “Is that my mother?” He hardly needed confirmation for he could see it now. Isabelle’s bone structure, his eyes and hair, the odd fragility of Maxwell represented in the gentleness of her features and daintiness of her hands. That was his mother.

“Indeed, my darling. Jocelyn mentioned she took this picture of your mother on the day before her wedding with Valentine.” Magnus offered a bit more context, he did not know the whole story behind the photo but could assume it was the last fitting for the maid of honour’s gown.

Alec still looked at the picture as if it was a scientific finding. To see his mother’s face so young, so void of the usual strictness he’d see there was odd. “How old was she? She looks younger than Izzy...” he muttered unable to hide the awe in his voice.

“Hmm, I cannot say for sure, I would guess around 13 years old.” Magnus’ voice had a lilt of curiosity. He had never thought about Maryse’s age much. Back then he had only cared about the fact that she had tried to kill him. But looking at the picture now, and recalling when he first truly met her, he could say she was still a child by shadowhunter standards. And that was saying something. “She was the youngest member of The Circle. When I met her, she was only sixteen.”

Alec took everything Magnus said in, shocked to learn not only his mother’s age in the picture but when she had had her first encounter with the warlock. Obviously he knew how that encounter happened, the attack to the Whitelaws and the eventual fallout from it. Still, to imagine his mother at sixteen, going through all of that was horrifying.

“She was so young...” he whispered, tracing the picture with his fingertips only to realise that if Magnus had met his other at sixteen, that meant he had already been born. His mother had him she was fifteen. She had been a child. “Angel, she had me when she was fifteen, Magnus. I can’t even imagine what that was like and to have to deal with Dad and the Clave on top of that...” he trailed off, even more horrified.

“I remember her in the night of the attack. Out of all the shadowhunters there, she was the one I was most afraid of. That look in her eyes, the determination, the way she took charge of people. It was so magnificently terrifying.” Magnus recalled, his eyes flashing gold as his mind showed him the images of that night. Images of the tiny shadowhunter with the bluest eyes he had ever seen, fighting her way through a massacre.

Alec felt some weird sort of pride at hearing Magnus talk about his mother like that. He knew she was strong, knew that his mother could best anyone in combat but to see her fighting was rare, something he had only seen once or twice and never the real deal; only under controlled environments and training courses. So to hear that Magnus, the strongest warlock in the world, was afraid of his tiny mother made Alec feel proud. Even if his mother’s actions were nothing to be proud of.

“Still, what caught my attention the most about her was that she hesitated.” Magnus continued, turning Alexander around in his arms so he could gaze upon those lovely blue eyes he inherited from his mother. “She hesitated to hurt the Whitelaws, and she hesitated to hurt me.” And that was the moment he saw her for what she was; a child being toyed with, a child who had grown up being groomed into a killer but who was far too bright to do it mindlessly. She had known it was wrong and it showed when she held her sword back.

“She didn’t want to do it...” Alec concluded, imagining the war his mother battled not just literally but internally as well. They were more similar than most people cared to notice. “Did she—did she hurt you?” The shadowhunter asked nervously, not wanting to imagine that particular scenario. The sight of a tiny version of his mother stabbing Magnus rapidly flashing before his eyes.

The warlock shook his head, it hadn’t been Maryse that harmed him but Robert. “No. Your father did, but I won’t forget the look in her eyes. The look of horror and perhaps regret.” Magnus couldn’t help but to feel guilty despite not being to blame at all. She had been a child, a little girl and someone should have protected her from that; from Valentine and his treacherous words, from Robert.

“It’s weird, hearing you talk about her like that...” Alexander mumbled, leaning forward so he could rest he head on Magnus’ chest. The warlock hummed in a silent attempt to coax the nephilim to continue. “I have always seen her as this strong woman, someone who has all the answers, who is absolutely sure of everything all the time. Ever since I was little she was the only thing more sacred than the Angel. It’s strange to hear about her feeling scared, feeling uncertain” he tried to explain, all his memories of her from his childhood showcased her as this omnipotent being. Ever present, all knowing and beyond powerful. But to Magnus, she hadn’t been that at all.

“She is your mother, my darling. That is often how children see their mothers.” Magnus too had looked up at his mother and saw a goddess, but that had been many, many years ago.

“It’s just weird to think she was just a kid, just a scared little girl being manipulated by these men and then forced to take responsibility for their actions. I hate that she had to deal with that all alone...” Alec had resented her when he first found out about her part in The Circle. He had hated her, but now that he knew how young and vulnerable she had been to Valentine and his own father, he couldn’t find it in himself to blame her.

“She wasn’t alone.” Magnus’ warm voice echoed around them, Alec hearing it rumble in his chest. He slowly raised his head, locking eyes with his lover.

“How so?” He asked, very confused and Magnus smiled, because he remembered how terrified Maryse had been when Alec got hurt, could see how she not only loved her children but depended on them to keep her steady. Maryse had learned to be a woman by being a mother, and it showed in the way she could do anything as long as her children were by her side. And so the warlock leaned forward, placing a soft kiss on his shadowhunter’s forehead before saying.

“She had you.”


End file.
